


Fine Line

by ivoryline



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Crowley has Trauma from the Fall (Good Omens), Crowley is Angry at God (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29260497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryline/pseuds/ivoryline
Summary: Crawley stands frozen, poleaxed, stricken. The stars stare right back, lonely and cold and forever out of reach. The negative spaces in between echo the void opening up in Crawley’s chest at the sight. His fingertips burn with the memory of stardust. He thinks about the blueprints left unfinished on his workstation and aches.In which a fallen angel struggles to understand what happens to love once it's lost and to find meaning in the empty spaces where his broken edges don't quite meet.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Fine Line

**Author's Note:**

> _And I had done a hellish thing,  
>  And it would work 'em woe:  
> For all averred, I had killed the bird  
> That made the breeze to blow.  
> Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,  
> That made the breeze to blow!_
> 
> The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge

Crawley is lurking in the garden and he hates it.

The garden is Eden, of course. God’s little pet project. He remembers sitting at Her feet, eyes wide in adoration, when She told her angels about the garden and the man made in Her image. He remembers the rebellious feeling taking root in his chest when She told him to love Her creation more than Her. He remembers sulphur.

So he’s there in the shadow of a cherry tree and he hates all of it. Crawley is allowed to hate now. He’s allowed to seethe and loathe so that’s what he does.

The garden is a riot. Flowers and bushes and trees all tripping over each other- the air heavy and warm. Crawley feels claustrophobic and misses the vacuum of space viciously. He sheds his serpent form and fashions himself a new one with the mathematical dimensions of man in mind. It’s not quite right, not quite who he used to be. He flexes his bony fingers and wonders if it’s him that’s flawed or the calculus.

His orders are vague. Go up there and make some trouble they told him. He takes his time tracking down Adam and Eve, not at all eager to return to the damp halls of Hell. He finds them on the muddy bank of a stream in the late afternoon and shimmies his way up a tree to spy on them. He keeps his ears open for the angels he can sense up on the walls as he watches the two humans smear silt on their skin.

Crawley decides he finds them terribly dull. He can’t comprehend why the Almighty expended so much effort on what, so far, seems totally pointless. He sees their naivety, their fascination with river grit, and thinks of sulphur. He starts to summon up the power for a miracle, his first real one in his new reality. He doesn’t even know what it’s for- just that it’s wicked and awful. He poises his fingers for a snap.

Eve starts to laugh. It’s loud and brash and utterly delighted. Crawley feels the Hellish energy trickle away as he leans forward as far as he can, curious despite himself as to what sparked it. She’s holding some sort of small creature. It’s a type of crab if Crawley is remembering correctly. Adam barely spares the animal a glance. He’s too busy watching the bounce of her curls and tracking the water droplets on her skin.

Crawley sinks back against the rough tree trunk and folds his limbs up tight. He doesn’t follow Adam and Eve when they abandon the stream at dusk. He waits until it’s truly dark and his joints start to protest before he leaps down from his hiding place. He goes over to the bank and examines the humans’ finger tracks in the mud. He sticks his own hands down in the muck, attempting to find the appeal. He discovers that he hates the feeling of dirt under his fingernails.

He straightens and glances upward. He had been avoiding it- looking towards the night sky. He knows he shouldn’t look, he knows it’s going to hurt, but he didn’t think it’d be like this.

Crawley stands frozen, poleaxed, stricken. The stars stare right back, lonely and cold and forever out of reach. The negative spaces in between echo the void opening up in Crawley’s chest at the sight. His fingertips burn with the memory of stardust. He thinks about the blueprints left unfinished on his workstation and aches.

A twig snaps and Crawley only barely manages to drag his gaze away from the heavens. There’s a figure on the other bank and Crawley thinks he’s made of moonlight. He’s washed out and faintly glowing— his doppelganger on the water’s surface wavering and interrupted by the current. He stares at Crawley with his mouth slightly ajar and sword untouched.

He’s an angel. Crawley knows it immediately. He thinks his missing pieces will always remember the collective they came from, will always recognize the light that casts his shadow.

Crawley flees. He sinks through the earth, collapses down to Hell.

* * *

  
Crawley returns with the dawn because he has to. He doesn’t want to fuck up the first thing he’s been asked to do. Or maybe he does, he doesn’t know. He isn’t sure he wants to find out how much further he can fall. If it’ll hurt any more than the first time.

He watches the humans during the day from shadows and tree tops. He watches the angel at night. It’s easier to track his curls in the gloom and the infrequent arc of his flaming blade than it is to search out familiar constellations.

The angel intrigues Crawley. He mostly stays on the wall during the day and stares out at nothing. As soon as the sun sets, though, he ambles through the garden. Crawley watches him sample grapes and pears and, on one memorable occasion when Crawley has to suppress a smirk, a dandelion. He watches the angel spend an entire night delighting over bits of quartz.

Crawley finds the humans more and more interesting as the days go by. They’re curious and determined things and Crawley can’t help feeling a grudging sort of admiration.

Ultimately, it’s Eve who finds him out. He had crept too close to the shadow’s edge, intent on watching her weave a basket out of palm fronds, and she spotted him immediately. Crawley felt a stab of panic, sure that the game was over and he’d return to Hell a failure. Or worse, she’d alert one of the angels and Crawley would cease to be entirely. Instead, she had beckoned him closer and taught him how to weave.

Crawley doesn’t get on very well with Adam, initially. Adam is rightfully wary of Crawley and Crawley can’t quite forget the ultimatum that came with his creation. Eve helps, though. One afternoon, she sets them to husking coconuts. Crawley finds the task detestable and is gratified to see Adam feel the same way.

Crawley takes the risk to stick around after sunset to tell them about the stars. They have no interest whatsoever in the how’s and the why’s of the distant lights. Instead, they point out pictures and patterns. Crawley leans back against a fallen oak and listens.

Hell gets impatient, eventually. He’s reminded, in no uncertain terms, who he’s tied his tether to. Crawley emerges from the earth as a serpent. He knows Adam and Eve are forbidden to partake of the tree of knowledge. He knows that’s their one, singular rule. He thinks about Eve’s inquisitiveness, the spark of mischief in her eyes, the questions he knows she’d ask if she knew to ask them.

He whispers in Eve’s ear. He draws her attention to the apple. He offers her a choice. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Crawley stands on a wall with an angel. Dark clouds are amassing in the east as he watches Adam and Eve strike out into the empty desert. The angel is fretting over an act of kindness freely given and Crawley is momentarily struck dumb. Crawley doesn’t think he’s ever- not once, not one single time- been so boldly selfless. Not even when he wore white and sculpted nebulas out of the ether.

It begins to rain and Crawley smells petrichor and electricity. The angel wordlessly shelters him under a pristine, white wing. Crawley shuffles closer. He thinks of sulphur.

**Author's Note:**

> this is something i've been working on in between other stuff and i've sort of been using it as a form of catharsis. i can't guarantee a posting schedule so be aware that this _is_ going to be angsty, i'm going to be very mean to both crowley and aziraphale. i promise you a happy ending, though. everything will be okay for these two. tags will be updated as we go and i'll alert y'all to anything new at the start of the chapter.
> 
> feel free to chat with me on [tumblr](https://ivory-line.tumblr.com/)


End file.
